{"id":1711,"date":"2021-03-13T15:07:09","date_gmt":"2021-03-13T04:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scriptorum.imagicity.com\/2021\/03\/13\/on-becoming-happy-2\/"},"modified":"2021-03-13T15:07:09","modified_gmt":"2021-03-13T04:07:09","slug":"on-becoming-happy-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/village-explainer.kabisan.com\/index.php\/2021\/03\/13\/on-becoming-happy-2\/","title":{"rendered":"On be(com)ing happy"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Originally published on the Pacific Policy blog. Republishing it here on the anniversary of cyclone Pam, which shattered the lives of half the country in 2015.)<\/em><\/p>\n

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During an interview for a documentary film about climate change some years ago, I was asked how Vanuatu came to be known as the Happiest Country in the World. On the face of it, the title is quite apt. Wherever you go in Vanuatu, you will find smiling faces, warm welcomes and open hearts.<\/p>\n

Even in the aftermath of cyclone Pam, which directly affected half the population and badly damaged dozens of their islands, Ni Vanuatu people still managed to smile and laugh. I confess that even after a decade living here, I found it astonishing that people would show such grace in the face of adversity.<\/p>\n

In the Malapoa Waetwud neighbourhood of Port Vila, a man calmly described how he and his family would live off fallen fruit for a few days, then they\u2019d dig up whatever hadn\u2019t rotted in the ground; but after that, he wasn\u2019t sure where the next meal was coming from. On the southern island of Tanna, which had been ravaged by 230 Kph winds, I sat with a group of mamas in the shade of the only remaining tree trunk in the village, and we laughed and gently teased each other as we passed the time.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not that they were oblivious. On the contrary. Only half an hour earlier a village elder came up to me, looked me in the eye and spoke with brutal simplicity: \u2018I nogat wan samting.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018There\u2019s nothing left.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

It took me days\u2014weeks to be honest\u2014to understand how people could remain light-hearted in the face of the loss of everything of value in their lives.<\/p>\n

The penny began to drop when I visited Cildo (pronounced SEEL-doe) and his parents in Erangorango, in the foothills overlooking Port Vila. Cildo was a sturdy, plain-spoken, twelve-year-old boy originally from Malekula. His family home had been shattered by a massive tree which fell at the height of the storm, injuring his father and barely missing Cildo and his mother. I interviewed him for UNICEF, as part of a series of videos taking stock of the effect of the storm on children in Vanuatu.<\/p>\n

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Cildo was remarkably matter-of-fact:<\/p>\n

When the cyclone came we went inside and ate, then we all went into one room. Then a tree fell onto our house, and we all sat in the remaining corner until morning.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That\u2019s it. Plain facts, delivered without inflection or stress. And when I took his photo standing in the ruins, he flashed the brightest smile.<\/p>\n

It was only a couple of weeks later, as I was reviewing all the shots I\u2019d taken in the days following the disaster, that I realised his secret: You don\u2019t need a reason to be happy.<\/p>\n

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Children returning from the community cyclone shelter found their way blocked by a damaged bridge. Hundreds were forced to walk home.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Transactionality and causality are so deeply ingrained in the western European psyche that it comes as a revelation that actually, happiness does not need to be pursued. It can be found wherever you happen to be standing.<\/p>\n

The rootless and sometimes purposeless nature of consumer societies often stand in the way of such realisations. For my part, I spent the better part of my childhood coping with damage that never should have happened, and spent my young adulthood as a half-formed Angry Young Man. I was ruled by surges of anger, righteousness and cynicism, until circumstances finally forced me to conduct an existential stock-take.<\/p>\n

By the time I arrived in Vanuatu in 2003, I was ready to learn. And before eighteen months had passed, I knew that this is a place where I could be happy. I could be happy, not because things are better here; in many ways they\u2019re not. I could be happy because I no longer needed a reason.<\/p>\n

Back in 2010, I\u00a0wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been\u00a0stuck in cyclones<\/a>, got malaria, dengue, been hospitalised from the after-effects of prolonged dehydration, had more parasites in more places than anyone really wants to know. I\u2019ve been stung by things\u00a0straight out of a Tim Burton movie<\/a>. I\u2019ve had death threats and constant, insanely unreasonable demands on my time and my pocketbook.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And yet, and yet in spite of it all, I was happy. Further back, in 2008, on the event of the perfectly preventable death of a little boy,\u00a0I wrote<\/a>\u00a0about his funeral:<\/p>\n

To an outsider, it\u2019s wildly incongruous to watch the mourners as they approach the deceased\u2019s house, chatting quietly, even laughing amongst themselves as if on some innocuous errand. The only clue about their destination is a cloth draped across one shoulder, to wipe the coming tears.<\/p>\n

At the very instant they reach the gate, the wails begin. They are contrived, it\u2019s true, but utterly heartfelt. The display of pain and sorrow at a funeral is more than most people of European descent have ever seen. To hear women moaning and weeping during the vigil and the burial is an uncanny and deeply moving experience. Though ritualised, the depth and sincerity of the emotion is starkly undeniable.<\/p>\n

And then, as quickly as it begins, it is done. Life goes on, there\u2019s food to be cooked, children to be tended to, and laundry to be done. The laughter, the scolding and the [conversation] start up again, as they always do.<\/p>\n

Everyone in Vanuatu understands the place of things, and the need for everything to be in its place. Respect for public display and private observance of all of life\u2019s events is universal. If someone smiles and jokes with his friends and colleagues just days after his first-born son has died\u2026 well, that\u2019s as it should be. The funeral is over, and though there will be other opportunities to look back and mourn over the next hundred days, life goes on, whether one wants it to or not.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But it took a decade\u2014and a cyclone of historical dimensions\u2014for the lesson finally to land: People in Vanuatu are not happy\u00a0because<\/em>\u00a0of anything. They are happy because the alternative doesn\u2019t bear considering. Living as they do in a Least Developed Country with little or no modern technology in village life, with\u00a0death<\/a>\u00a0and disaster around every corner, and people with whom you might or might not get along tucked up nice and cosy next to you (and you\u2019re on an island, remember; they\u2019re not going anywhere)\u2026 well, the least you can do is have a laugh now and then.<\/p>\n

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Children play marbles under a pair of massive trees defoliated by cyclone Pam<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Vanuatu\u2019s designation as the happiest place on earth was the result of research conducted by the\u00a0New Economics Foundation<\/a>, a UK-based think-tank. Their\u00a0Happy Planet Index<\/a>\u00a0actually placed more emphasis on the happiness of the planet than its people. It is a measure of people\u2019s well-being in proportion to environmental footprint. Vanuatu was included in the inaugural 2006 survey, but not in any subsequent studies.<\/p>\n

Still, the title endures because it fits. And now, as we face the impact of the developing world\u2019s environmental footprint in the form of rising ocean levels and storms of unprecedented severity, this ability to be happy in the face of adversity will no doubt serve us well.<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t for a minute let that lead developing countries to complacence. Just because we smile our way through the hardship doesn\u2019t mean that life is easier here. It\u2019s not easier at all; it\u2019s just better.<\/p>\n

And honestly, developed nations would do well to take a lesson from this. Disasters wrought by climate change are inevitable now. The damage is done. The storms will reach you too. You\u2019d better learn to smile through adversity as well, because you might not have much else to smile about.<\/p>\n

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The Village Explainer is a semi-regular newsletter containing analysis and insight focusing on under-reported aspects of Pacific societies, politics and economics.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Originally published on the Pacific Policy blog. Republishing it here on the anniversary of cyclone Pam, which shattered the lives of half the country in 2015.) During an interview for a documentary film about climate change some years ago, I was asked how Vanuatu came to be known as the Happiest Country in the World. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/village-explainer.kabisan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/village-explainer.kabisan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/village-explainer.kabisan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/village-explainer.kabisan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/village-explainer.kabisan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/village-explainer.kabisan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1711\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/village-explainer.kabisan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/village-explainer.kabisan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/village-explainer.kabisan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}